He laughed. “Why not?”
“Because I’ll eat them. And so will Brinkley. All of them. One time, we finished an entire batch in less than two days. That can never happen again.”
“If you don’t want to eat them, why do you keep making them?”
I shrugged. “Because I want to.”
He grinned. “Good answer.”
“Did you hear anything else about the car?” I asked.
“Nothing yet. Spazz is pretty good at what he does. So, if he hasn’t found anything by now, there’s probably nothing to find.”
“I hope you’re right,” I said and failed to hide the worry in my voice.
He didn’t miss it either. “Let me see if he can give us an update.”
I assumed he’d send a text message since that’s how he’d been previously communicating with him. However, Bear called him and placed his phone on speaker.
“Hey, Spazz. I’m here with Mackenzie, and you’re on speaker. Just checking to see if you found anything before it gets too late.”
“Not yet, but I’ve got a list going of things I still need to look into,” he said distractedly.
“Such as?” Bear asked.
“Um, where did I put it? Oh, here it is. Let me see…” he trailed off. “Oh, Mackenzie, do you know if your brothers are still in jail?”
“I only have one brother. My half brother, Tristan. And yes, as far as I know, he’s still incarcerated.”
“What about Oliver?”
I scrunched my nose in disgust. “Oliver has no blood relation to me. He was my stepbrother for an unfortunate period of time,” I clarified. “I haven’t checked in a while, but I would assume he’s still in prison. The last time I looked, he had several years left on his sentence.”
“Thanks, I’ll cross their names off my list. What about your other family members?”
“I don’t have any.”
“None?” Spazz and Bear asked at the same time.
“Other than my daughter, no. If they’re not in jail, they’re dead or gone.”
“Okay, that significantly shortened my list. But so far, I’m not finding anything to suggest a connection between you and Carter Perry. The address on his driver’s license is about five miles from your house. Also, his father is buried in the same cemetery as Russell and Nicole.”
“So, it makes sense for him to be in the area,” I said, but the plausible explanation didn’t provide the relief I’d hoped for.
“Looks that way, but I want to look into a few more things before I give you my final report.”
“Appreciate it,” Bear said. “I’ll check in with you tomorrow.”
“Thank you,” I called out, hoping he heard me before the call was ended.
“Well,” Bear said and made his way over to the sink I’d steadily been filling with dirty dishes. “I’m going to help you with these while we’re waiting on the dirty snowballs.”
I’d been doing the post-holiday baking clean-up all by myself for over four years. So having another adult pitch in was a treat for me, and I couldn’t hide my excitement.
“That’s the nicest Christmas present anyone’s gotten me in a long time,” I teased, and ignored the pang of sadness I felt at the truth to my words.
“Not a fan of doing the dishes?” he asked.